The wait is finally over, America! "Downton Abbey" finally heads across the pond as part of PBS’s "Masterpiece Classic." Season 3 is not only fantastic, but it recalls the dizzying heights of the first season, an addictive mix of drama, romance, tragedy, and humor, enacted both upstairs and down. Among this season’s many highlights: a sumptuous wedding that fans have eagerly awaited—that is, if the bride and groom actually make it down the aisle—and the introduction of Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson, the American mother of Elizabeth McGovern’s Cora. Suffice it to say, you’ll want to cancel your Sunday-night plans and curl up in front of the telly with a cup of tea for the next eight weeks.

The sophomore season of the HBO comedy, from writer-director–executive producer–star Lena Dunham, finds Hannah and her friends continuing to grapple with adulthood, offering a journey through suspended adolescence that is biting and emotional. "Girls" returns with its humor and insight attached as Dunham’s Hannah zigzags through life in Brooklyn and through a series of misadventures that are as painful as they are hysterical to watch. This show, as always, has a powerful right hook.

It's 1984 and young Carrie Bradshaw is yet to meet Samantha, Miranda, Charlotte, or Mr. Big. The fashion-forward teen is in high school, navigating life after the tragic death of her mother, trying to make friends and maybe even find love. Maybe. This is "The Carrie Diaries," the CW's adaptation of Candace Bushnell's beloved novel with the same name. Starring AnnaSophia Robb as the title character, we see Carrie's adventures before she hits the Big Apple. With a fun, heartwarming (but not too cheesy) storyline, quirky characters, retro fashion, and an '80s soundtrack to boot, this is one flashback we can't wait for in 2013.

For the past 11 years, the biggest phenomenon on television has spun through hundreds of cities, thousands of pitchy auditions, and seven different judges. So there’s no reason to believe that the new panel—with Keith Urban, Nicki Minaj, Mariah Carey, and Randy Jackson—will be better than the others. Actually, there is. Did you see that screaming match between two of music’s biggest divas? It’s like "Idol" is now a Bravo reality show and singing competition all in one!

Al Qaeda or Scientology, which was more impenetrable? Our money is on the cultish church, as Wright expands on his viral New Yorker article and conducts more than 200 hundred interviews with current and former members to understand why Hollywood performers are lured by the church.

Kevin Bacon on TV. If that isn’t enough of a draw for you, there’s a lot more in "The Following" that could be. Fox’s upcoming psychological thriller promises to deliver on suspense and a complex construction that goes well beyond the story of a serial killer who breaks out of prison and the cop who put him there. Bacon plays Ryan Hardy, the defeated ex-FBI agent. His nemesis is Joe Carroll, played by James Purefoy, who is in full monster mode and exciting to watch. Terrifying and addictive, it’s easily the most anticipated show of midseason.

The heir apparent to "Homeland" isn’t on Showtime—it’s this electrifying period drama on FX starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as a married couple living the seemingly perfect life with their kids in 1980s Falls Church, Va. But these two share a secret: they’re highly trained Soviet sleeper agents operating at the very height of the Cold War. While they’ve gone to great lengths to conceal their true nature, their new neighbor (Noah Emmerich) is an FBI agent who wonders if they aren’t who they seem to be. Based on the gripping pilot, this promises to be a tense thriller as well as an examination of patriotism, zealotry, and identity. And if Russell and Rhys aren’t enough to sell you, Margo Martindale ("Justified") has joined the cast of "The Americans" as well. This is definitely one to watch.

Last year’s halftime headliner, Madonna, was a befuddling choice, since the fan bases of the Material Girl and football overlap probably by exactly three people. Beyoncé’s following may be just scantly more in line with pigskin diehards, but all that’s unlikely to matter when Sasha Fierce takes the stage after the second quarter. As she proved last year when she torched the stage at the Glastonbury Music Festival—perhaps the biggest rock-and-roll event in the world—she can win over even the most skeptical crowd. With more than 110 million pairs of eyes on her, there’s no doubt that Beyoncé will deliver the performance of her life.

When "Smash" premiered last winter, it was a dazzling, glossy, riveting beacon of hope that, even though "Glee" had completely cheesified itself into a messy after-school special, the musical-TV genre could still be good. Even great. But for-the-love-of–Patti LuPone did "Smash" become a nonsensical, dreary creative disaster. Thankfully for Season 2, Smash has ditched last year’s showrunner, excised its most ridiculous characters, and added an Oscar-winning force of nature to the cast. If early trailers are any indication, Jennifer Hudson, who is joining to play a Broadway diva, could bring the jolt of energy and larger-than-life spectacle that the show sorely needs to become a smash again.

All of 31 and Russell has already had a whiff of victory but not tasted it (her debut novel was one of three finalists in a year that saw the Pulitzer board awarding no prize for literature). Better this than the sophomore slump, but this is in fact Russell’s second short-story collection. The title story is as advertised—two married vampires talking in a lemon grove. The husband has “a tan that won’t fade until I die (which I never will).” The second offering is about daughters of samurai warriors, “but of course there is no way for anyone to verify that now.” But of course! What a quaint sense of humor; what surprises spring from Russell’s imagination; how she captures the way we humans think, whether we are eternally dead or Japanese in kimonos.

The Jay-Z co-signed, 21-year-old Harlem rapper exploded into the public consciousness in 2012 thanks to her well-received four-track EP "1991," released in May. Banks, who is openly bisexual, has a breakneck lyrical flow, noteworthy fashion sense, and has collaborated with everyone from Lady Gaga to Kanye West. This young starlet is poised to be the next big thing in hip-hop in 2013, when she’ll finally release her debut album, "Broke With Expensive Taste."

Named after an infamous 1953 speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower responsible for distributing nuclear materials to less technologically advanced countries like Iran and Pakistan, Atoms for Peace is an alt-rock supergroup comprised of singer Thom Yorke (Radiohead), bassist Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead), drummer Joey Waronker (Beck and R.E.M.), and multi-instrumentalist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne). Since forming in 2009, the band has only performed a series of well-received one-off shows, but will finally release their debut album, "Amok," in February

Put it next to Marx’s "Das Kapital" in the category of books that started a revolution: "The Omnivore’s Dilemma" made locavore a household term, and we’ll never look at corn the same way again. In "Cooked," Pollan borrows from sociology to examine how cooking used to connect us all—think of wedding banquets, holiday feasts, and family meals around the dining table—and how eating processed food breaks that bond.